[Pyb-developer] RE: pyb collaboration

[Andy R. <an...@re...>]

Hi folks.  I just joined.  I am starting a campaign for
'best practice standards in enterprise deployment' in Python,
something my company needs badly, and one big item on my wish
list is something like Ant.  There are several contenders
but this looks like the simplest and cleanest so far...

I'd like to ask a few questions about where pyb might go,
subject to sufficient resources.  

0. GPL: fine for now, but if Guido agreed to get it into
the standard Python library one day (which is BSD/LGPL-like),
would you accept?  (we can dream....)

1. Ant has a standard way to keep config info external to the
build script (ftp servers, hosts, passwords); you can thus safely 
check in build scripts and have a config file in each environment.
Is this desirable?

2. filesets as objects: 
The copy task and friends seem to be just walking the tree under where 
you start with include and exclude filters.  Is this just a
starting point or do you feel it is the optimum solution?

I have seen half a dozen classes like filesets in Ant, including one 
buried in distutils, and everyone doing deployment stuff implements one.
I'd like to see one as a standard Python library module one day.  I 
also  implemented the 'superglob' (e.g. include "spam/**/*.py") which
I find very nice expressive syntax, and can contribute this if
desired.  

3. Python versus XML: should build scripts be Python forever, or 
would a mapping from XML be useful later?  (I have a 50/50 split 
with people I have talked to, I also tend to feel GUIs to build/edit 
build scripts are good, if further off..)

4. tasks as objects vs. tasks as functions.
The latter is the way you have gone and Java has no functions :-)
I wonder if the former would be more useful if you ever want to 
(a) instantiate from xml (i.e. have enough metadata to know
the type of arguments)
(b) give them all a channel for logging stuff as they do
their work
(c) create generic GUI dialogs for building scripts
(d) have some global context for tasks (e.g. to externally
store and make available


5. Scons (scons.sourceforge.net) is really
moving ahead in the C/C++ domain.  It deals with different issues.  
But key people in the python world who don't have experience of 
enterprise server stuff have said and will say again "why are 
you duplicating this"?  Any ideas how to define the difference?  
Has anyone here looked at scons to see if the models could be 
merged or share tasks?


I have no strong feelings on any of the above, just want to
get a sense of where you are heading..

Thanks,

Andy Robinson
CEO/Chief Architect, 
ReportLab Europe Ltd.